This a public service announcement to all our loyal readers/views/fans and those that have ended up here by complete chance…
Let’s face it, flat-sharing has plenty of negative associations with it. Whether it’s living with someone who never pays the bills, thinks tidying up is never their job or keeps the rest of the house up on a nightly basis with his latest ‘conquest’, we all have our share of war stories from people we’ve lived with!
The reality is, however, that this is the new norm so we’d better get used to it. You might be nailing your job in the City taking home a ridiculous bonus or killing it at one of the hottest tech companies in the world but if you live in London without the Bank of Mum and Dad to fall back on, you’ll still have to wait until your 30s to get onto the property ladder. Not even quitting avocado on toast is going to help you!
Despite the negativity associated with not buying a home, Ideal Flatmate thinks this can be a great opportunity to live with new, interesting people who can enrich your lives.
Much of the problem with the flat-sharing market at the moment is how hard it seems to be able to find the right person to share your flat with. When a friend moves out, goes abroad with work for six months or betrays you all by moving in with his girlfriend, the options of where to advertise are pretty limited and boil down to a couple of sites. What follows is an awkward process of potentially 20 or 30 meetings with your new prospective flatmate in what feels like a cross between a job interview and a first date. As with both of those, you normally know within about 10 seconds if you have anything in common with the person or not!
To make it easier, they worked with Cambridge University Professors(!), or boffins, as they’ve been labelled, to come up with the 20 most important questions to work out the kind of flatsharer you are. After taking these, their algorithm spits out your highest matched flatmates looking in a given area, saving you time, money and stress! #result.
Finding cool, similar people to share your flat shouldn’t be a challenge especially in a city of 8 million people, so what are you waiting for start making flat-sharing great again!